


Les Mousquetaires Misérables d’ABC

by iberiandoctor (jehane)



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
Genre: 1600s au, A song about a goat, Another song about Caesar and mothers, Crack, Crack Crossover, Crossover, Dumas pastiche, Gen, Les Trois Mousequetaires AU, Marius is a booby, Musketeers, Pastiche, Rebels, Revolutionary Musketeers, Revolutionary Rhetoric, Singing, So is D’Artagnan tbh, Speechifying, Swordfights, Victor Hugo Pastiche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-26 19:49:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14409366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jehane/pseuds/iberiandoctor
Summary: They’re sad! They’re French! They sing a lot! And they really star in an Alexandre Dumas book about sword fights and intrigue and revenge and possibly musketeers! (Featuring Marius Pontmercy as the hapless young d’Artagnan who sadly doesn’t get to challenge anyone to a duel.)





	Les Mousquetaires Misérables d’ABC

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thedevilchicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/gifts).



> Thanks to P for enabling!
> 
> Minor CWs for canon character death, references to a 1620s Catholic/Protestant religious civil war, and possibly sacrilegious references to a song about a cardinal and a goat.

On the first Monday of the month of April, 162__, the Place Saint-Michel in the grand city of Paris appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second La Rochelle of it. To the untrained eye, it looked as if its citizens had hastened to don their cuirasses and to seize hold of their muskets, and had directed their steps toward the historic venue of the Café Musain, in order to build a barricade to defend it from vile rebellion.

This was not, of course, the case. There was no attack; instead there was simply the usual fine spring evening featuring period-typical armed rowdiness and drinking. But in those times, such suspected revolutions were common. There were nobles, who made war against each other; there was the king, who made war against the cardinal; there was Spain, which made war against the king. Then there were the Huguenots of La Rochelle, whose religious war had cut down too many men in the flower of their youth.

This tragedy had marked the life of the young man upon who we now cast our attentions. 

A young man — we sketch his portrait upon these humble pages. A windmill-tilting Don Quixote of eighteen; a Don Juan whose face was wide-eyed and guileless and infinitely attractive to members of either sex. He had a feckless knack for getting into trouble, and was astounded, every single time, when trouble indeed happened upon him. Too big for a youth, too small for a grown man, he wore a long sword which, dangling from a leather baldric, tended to trip him as he walked.

This sword had belonged to the young man’s father, who had perished at the Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, under the banner of Louis XIII, and of Cardinal Richelieu.

The younger Pontmercy had inherited his father’s title of Baron together with his father’s sword, and had despatched himself to Paris to fulfil his father’s last and dearest wish: that he should join the Musketeers of the King’s Guard.

He had therefore come to Paris on his trusty steed to present his compliments to M. de Treville, the captain of the Guard and his father’s bosom friend, to be inducted into the ranks of the finest swordsmen in all of France. He felt there was no honour higher than defending God and the King; indeed, his heart was too pure for this world. Little did he know the cataclysm that was soon to take place within his very soul.

Unfortunately for Pontmercy, M. de Treville was not at Court. At this hour, perhaps that gentleman could be found in Les Halles at the residence of a lady notorious for her affections, or at the bath-house in Rue Babette? If not, he would surely be attempting an early start at his favourite watering hole at the Place Saint-Michel — and it was to this place that the young hopeful redirected his steps. 

The Café Musain resembled nothing so much as the solemn camp that Pontmercy had come to expect. He had vague visions of the great man being accompanied by a grim parade of Musketeers, armed to the teeth and ready for anything. 

Instead, when he crossed the square, he fell into the midst of a melée of swordsmen and tavern patrons and courtiers and citizenry, who milled about in front of the café, in no hurry to leave, crossing one another in their passage, calling out, quarrelling, and deliberately embracing or picking fights with one another. 

In order to make one’s way through this crowd of sophisticates, it was necessary to be an officer, a great noble, or a pretty woman. Needless to say, our young man was none of these.

Inside the café, it was even more rowdy. There were four Musketeers on the bottom of a long staircase, disporting themselves in the following exercise: one of them, stationed upon the top stair, naked sword in hand, endeavoured to prevent the three others from ascending. These three others fenced against him with their agile swords. All were laughing merrily.

Within the main room, other men were not fighting, but drinking, and amusing themselves with stories about war, and women, and with wild stories about the Court.

Someone was singing a very scandalous song about the Cardinal, that great man who was so revered by Pontmercy the elder — a song which cracked jokes about his bandy legs and his sexual proclivities and to how he was in truth fonder of goats than he was of God the Father Himself.

“This fellow will surely either be imprisoned or hangéd,” thought the terrified Pontmercy, “and I, no doubt, with him; for from the moment I have listened to this awful song, I shall be as an accomplice! What would my dear father say, who so strongly urged upon me a veneration for the Cardinal, if he knew I was in the society of such rebels to sense and honour?”

We have no need, therefore, to say that this young man dared not join in any of the activities in the Musain, only that he looked with all his eyes and listened with all his ears.

The centre of the drinking party was a Musketeer of most amiable countenance, dressed in a costume that attracted general attention. He did not wear the uniform cloak, but an azure doublet, and over this a magnificent baldric worked in gold, which shone like the sun, and from which was suspended a gigantic rapier. All were in admiration of his embroidered baldric, and Pontmercy more than anyone.

Laughing, the Musketeer showed off his beauteous weapon. “This fashion is coming in. It is a folly, I admit, but still it is the fashion, and one I have expended out of my own purse.”

“Ah, Courfeyrac!” cried one of his companions, “don’t try to claim you paid for that baldric. Our Captain gives us little enough wages as it is! Faith, it must have been given you by that veiled lady I met you with last Sunday.”

“I can hardly believe it,” said another; with a shudder, Pontmercy recognised the singer of the goat song. “I would give it more pause if you had said, Bahorel, that it had instead been gifted to our redoubtable swain by a mysterious gentleman.” 

“While it’s true that I am the recipient of many a gift,” said the man addressed as Courfeyrac; “in this instance the proof is that I paid twelve pistoles for this magnificent weapon. Is it not true, Combeferre?” 

“Indeed,” his companion said with a gentle laugh. “I am indeed able to vouch for your weapon, at least in this critical respect.” He spoke solemnly, as if the double entendre he had just made was entirely unintentional; he had a learned air about him, as if he attended lectures on hieroglyphics and could point out the faulty grammar in the Dictionary of the Academy. Compared to Courfeyrac, he was dressed simply, and seemed better suited to a pious life spent in contemplation of the spirit. And yet, he had remained in the company of men who sang scandalous songs about the Cardinal and a goat! It was most confusing to poor Pontmercy.

“Comrades, let us not confuse such mundane matters with our true calling,” someone else interjected, in ringing tones of command. 

The others turned to the interlocutor, and so did Pontmercy, for surely the person who spoke with such leadership and certitude could only be the M. de Treville that he sought — his father’s great friend and hopefully his own patron?

But Pontmercy did not expect M. de Treville to be this extraordinarily handsome man, with the face of an angel, all long golden lashes, and hair that billowed in the wind. He had the rosy pallor of a youth escaped from college, and eyes which doubtless had inspired a hundred holy wars. He wore his uniform as if he had been born to it.

"Why do we consider the present state of Courfeyrac’s decidedly unvirginal sheets, when we could picture a better future for ourselves? The streets of Paris filled with light, virgin branches on the thresholds, all nations sisters, all thinkers entirely at liberty, believers and unbelievers on terms of full equality, all Frenchmen united, no more French blood shed, no more wars, happy mothers, and a happy King!”

“Parbleu!" exclaimed Courfeyrac ("Pardieu" had not yet come into fashion at this period), "that pleasing one’s mother might coincide with pleasing one’s king! My dear Enjolras, a lack of wars may be what our King could have achieved, had it not been for the Cardinal and his peculiar animus as to the nature of God."

A state of misery seemed to settle upon this group of Musketeers: it was as if to be miserable was indeed their true natural state of being. To underline this point, someone started to sing a very mournful dirge.

Enjolras said sombrely:—

"Indeed, such an animus as would be a crime on the Cardinal’s part."

At this exchange, touching obliquely, as it did, upon the Cardinal and the grand war of La Rochelle, a tremor ran through young Pontmercy. This very word, _crime_ , overpassed the measure of what he could accept. He felt his sword arm jerk up, as if to avenge himself to a slight on the honour of the Church, and of the father fallen upon the stones of the Île de Ré.

Such are conversations with abrupt turns, in which the perspective changes suddenly. Chance is the stage-manager — the fickle hand of fate can turn a duel of words into a cataclysm for change, or into a deadly duel involving actual swords.

In another world, Pontmercy would have drawn his father’s sword, and challenged the golden-haired upstart to a duel; his hand would have been prevented by Combeferre, and Courfeyrac, and he would have challenged them as well. If that had occurred, either he would have shed his lifesblood outside the Café Musain, or his life might have taken a vastly different turn: involving intrigue at King Louis's court, and exciting romance in the form of a beautiful female spy and another virtuous lady, rather than in brotherhood and open rebellion upon hastily-constructed barricades. But such is the nature that chance plays in our narrative.

And so, we observe Pontmercy performing the following: —

He rose, walked slowly to the map of France spread out on the far wall, and at whose outer reach an island was visible in a separate compartment, laid his finger on this compartment and said: —

"The Île de Ré, a little island which has rendered France great."

This was like a breath of icy air. All within the café ceased talking; the dirge singer fell silent. Amongst the King’s Musketeers, it was as if something was on the point of occurring, and that a group was on the verge of becoming historic.

Enjolras turned in Pontmercy's direction, and replied: —

"France needs no island to be great. France is great because she is France."

Young Pontmercy felt no desire to retreat; he turned towards Enjolras, and his voice burst forth with a vibration which came from a quiver of his very being: —

"God forbid that I should diminish France! But to discuss her participation in this great war against the Huguenots is not diminishing her. Come! let us argue the question. I am a new comer among you, but I will confess that you amaze me. Where do we stand? Who are we? Who are you? Who am I? Let us come to an explanation about the Cardinal. I thought you were the most admirable officers and soldiers of the King! Whom do you admire, if you do not admire all the King’s great conquests, and the wars fought to unite France under the same God, and the Cardinal who commands these matters in the name of both God and King?”

All held their peace, and Pontmercy continued with increased enthusiasm, and almost without pausing for breath:—

"Let us be just, my friends! What a splendid destiny for a nation to have God at its head! To be the people of a Church which mingles with your dawns the startling announcement of a battle won! To bow the head in worship and gird the loins and march to the sound of a grand army, to make legions fly forth over the whole of the country, to know all of France bends the knee to the same God, that is sublime; and what greater thing is there?"

There was a shocked silence, and then — _"To be free,"_ said Combeferre.

With that simple expostulation, young Pontmercy felt as if his rising bubble of heated effusion had been pricked like a balloon, and the fight oozed out of him in a rapidly deflationary fashion. Had Combeferre run him through the side with his rapier, had Courfeyrac unsheathed his blade from that magnificent baldric, such wounds would have been less agonizing than this one, to his pride. 

He slumped against the wall, his mind in a whirl of confusion. Chuckling at the naïveté of this simple country buffoon, the other Musketeers withdrew. As he took his leave and headed for the stairs, Combeferre started to sing: —

 

"Si Cesar m'avait donne  
La gloire et la guerre,  
Et qu'il me fallait quitte  
L'amour de ma mere,  
Je dirais au grand Cesar:  
Reprends ton sceptre et ton char,  
J’aime mieux ma mere!"

 

_“If Caesar had given me glory and war, and I were obliged to quit my mother's love, I would say to great Caesar, "Take back thy sceptre and thy chariot; I prefer the love of my mother."_

Pontmercy said, as if dazed: "How could war be less commendable than the love of our mothers?” —

Out of all the Musketeers, only Enjolras had remained. He now placed his hand on Pontmercy’s shoulder, and our young man, who had never been touched in such a fashion, let alone by a fairer hand, shivered with confused love to his very core. 

“Not all wars are equal, nor all mothers,” Enjolras said. “While we may be Musketeers of the Guard, and proud to die for our King and for France, I would not lift my sword against my fellow Frenchmen, in the name of a holy war claimed by the Cardinal and the church.”

Pontmercy clutched the Musketeer’s hand as a child clutched at his mother’s. He said, his voice tremulous as a babe’s, “But then who can we possibly place our trust in, if not for God and our Mother Church?”

“Comrade,” Enjolras said; this was thrilling to Marius, who had never thought he could ever aspire to being anything more than a loyal subject of King Louis XIII, let alone that this robust, potent leader of men would address him as an equal and comrade-in-arms. “Comrade, our true mother is France herself.”

**Author's Note:**

> Dear TDC, I’m slightly nervous about this fic bc I have the sneaking suspicion that what I misapprehended was the nature of this exchange itself, but your musketeers prompt was too delicious to resist, and this tiny cracky crossover idea became this somewhat less tiny… thing. Hopefully you enjoy, anyway!
> 
> Parodies of Chs 1 and 3 of the [Dumas](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1257/1257-h/1257-h.htm) text; the various Amis speeches, including the song, the infamous _To be free_ , and _Citizen, my mother is the Republic_ cribbed [from](http://www.online-literature.com/victor_hugo/les_miserables/180/) [here](http://www.online-literature.com/victor_hugo/les_miserables/303/).
> 
> All I know [about the Huguenots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_La_Rochelle).


End file.
